Kurtenbach: Macklin Celebrini is officially a San Jose Shark. Now comes the tough part
Macklin Celebrini is going to bring the San Jose Sharks franchise back from the dead.
He’s the kind of player — the kind of sure bet that made him the no-debate-needed No. 1 overall pick in Friday’s NHL Entry Draft — that the question isn’t if he can turn a franchise around.
No, the real question is “How fast can he do it?”
Time is of the essence for the Sharks, after all.
After making the playoffs for the prior 14 of 15 seasons, the Sharks have missed the playoffs in the last five campaigns.
And it’s only now, heading into a season that will in all likelihood result in a sixth-straight playoff-free campaign, that the Sharks and Fins fans can even begin to imagine a time when this team will be in the postseason.
Every year the Sharks are not relevant — not one of the teams in the top half of the league come the end of 82 regular-season games — the harder it will be to win back those fans not just in the South Bay but the Bay Area overall.
Promise and talent can entice folks, sure, but you need more than potential to keep them engaged and to keep them coming back through the turnstiles at SAP Center.
And it wouldn’t hurt in the Sharks’ negotiations with the city of San Jose to extend the lease and renovate on SAP Center.
I’d be too extreme to call Celebrini a franchise savior — the situation isn’t so dire.
But this better work out. No pressure, kid.
The good news is that there’s little reason to believe Celebrini will be anything less than a sterling NHL player.
“I spent three years looking at Macklin Celebrini’s game to see if there was something I could say ‘Hey Mack, work on this ‘ Former Shark Tony Granato said on NHL Network Friday.
“Three years. I found nothing. Nothing.”
After a three-year tear-down which began in earnest when general manager Mike Grier, the Sharks are finally in a position to build upon the razed lot.
Celebrini is a perfect foundation for that new construction.
He does everything. He does everything well.
Aleksander Barkov might have been the first Finn to lift the Stanley Cup as a winning captain, but he was hardly the first of his kind.
Title-winning teams don’t only have a great top-line center, they have a 200-foot center. Someone like Celebrini.
The comparisons for the kid have been off the charts — Barkov, Jonathan Toews, Sidney Crosby, Hart Trophy winner Nathan McKinnon.
All of them are Stanley Cup champions.
Sadly, we cannot say the same about Joe Thornton. But it’s still a great comparison. The Sharks legend announced Celebrini at the Draft Friday.
Ultimately, Celebrini will be his own player, but the lofty comparisons set the table — just like Jumbo Joe — for an exciting future.
And make no mistake — the future will start in the 2024-25 season. Celebrini is ready for the NHL after dominating college hockey last season. There’s no reason for him to go back to Boston University for more seasoning.
Still, while he’s ready for the pros, we won’t see Celebrini’s best for a decade or longer — he is only 17 years old, after all.
But can he establish himself as a positive player in his first few seasons? Can he start moving the Sharks forward after years of regression?
Just how much of that undeniable talent can translate to the NHL in year one? Every positive inch matters, after all.
Celebrini won’t be alone, of course. The center will have a cast of Baby Sharks — Will Smith, Quentin Musty, Shakir Mukhamadullin, Filip Bystedt, and the No. 11 pick in the 2024 NHL Draft — to a core. Can they carry the Sharks back to relevance?
And, more importantly, sustainable relevance — the kind the Sharks had before the past five years?
They can. They better.
And it’s going to be fascinating to find out if they will.